Legislating Magick is a Bad Idea

The current debate going on in Zimbabwe over the so-called "Witchcraft and Suppression Act" is a perfect example of how trying to legislate magical or other spiritual practices is an incredibly bad idea. The government now finds itself working to preserve cultural practices such as traditional healing while at the same time prohibiting the use of "supernatural powers" for purposes that are more nefarious. But by the very nature of magick it can be difficult to determine the intent of a practitioner. If African spells are anything like their Western counterparts, many of the same components are used in both helpful and harmful operations. In the Western system Saturn, for example, rules cursing - but you could invoke Saturn to both cast a curse and protect yourself from one and the two ritual forms would be almost identical. Last week Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa tried to explain the fine distinction that the government is trying to make in applying the current law.

“Clearly if you point out that someone was a witch, it is defamatory.
“But if you can prove it that someone was found with a human hand that is enough proof,” he said.
“If you can open a grave and eat its contents, that’s enough proof.”
Minister Chinamasa said witchcraft allegations have in the past divided families.
Hardworking and wealthier families, he said, have usually been the target of such allegations.
The usual allegations, he said, were that these wealthier families were using poor families to work in their fields at night.
“If you can prove that, then it is witchcraft.
“But witchcraft is not the wisdom we want to protect.
“That power to make supernatural powers to cause harm to others is not what we want to protect under traditional medical knowledge,” he said.

Is Hunger Games Satanic?

Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy has become one of the most popular young adult series in the United States. Predictably, it has also attracted the attention of the sort of people who think books containing content deemed offensive should be banned, and was the third most challenged book series of 2011.

Given the history of book challenges this is not particularly surprising - the series is a dystopian work that is quite dark and relatively violent by young adult fiction standards. However, what I find bizarre is that in addition to being challenged on violence, the series was also challenged as "occult/satanic."

1. ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
2. The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
3. The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence

My understanding is that the series is straight dystopian science fiction with no paranormal or fantasy elements, so how exactly does this work? Could it be that those pushing to ban it have not even read it? In some ways it strikes me as more disturbing if they did, because it implies a view of occultism that is completely disconnected from reality. Is the series "Satanic" because the world it depicts just plain sucks? By that definition, much of regular life also qualifies and I suppose that means Satanists are everywhere.

Now I have not read the series myself, so I could be way off base here and maybe somebody can set me straight. Is there any occultism in the Hunger Games trilogy? If so, maybe I would find it worth reading.

Stealth Airship to Hunt Bigfoot

As a followup to yesterday's post about Russian yetis, I came across this article about a group of American cryptozoologists who have a new idea for hunting the sasquatch, the yeti's North American cousin. The sasquatch or bigfoot is known to be quiet, shy, and elusive. It seems to hear hunters coming a mile away and disappear without a trace into the forest. The theory goes that what bigfoot hunters really need is something silent or almost so that can navigate the difficult terrain of the Pacific Northwest's mountains. The technology has finally caught up on that front, and investigators now hope to track the mysterious creature using a remote-controlled stealth airship.

Using a 45-foot-long, camera-mounted, remote-controlled airship, project founder William Barnes plans to work with a team that includes one scientist to conduct nighttime flyovers of reported Bigfoot hotspots around the United States.

Barnes, a gold dredger whose current endeavor was inspired by an alleged encounter with a Bigfoot-like creature he claims to have had in 1997, thinks the helium-filled craft will allow his team to succeed where others have failed due to its unprecedented advantages in two key areas: stealth and maneuverability.

The camera aboard the craft can film in infrared, thermal imaging and high definition. And as the ship scans densely wooded regions from a penetrating vantage, it will never spook a potential subject with a broken twig or run out of breath in a one-sided foot race, Barnes believes.

Russian Yetis Migrating North

The United States is not the only country in the world to support a population of cryptozoologists. British researchers have been trying for years to prove that the Loch Ness Monster exists, the Chinese have tried to capture a specimen of a jungle ape-man called the Yaren, and Russian "hominologists" apparently study yetis, the so-called "abominable snowmen" of Asia. One of these researchers now claims that these creatures are being affected by climate change.

I suppose it should come as no surprise that if yetis indeed exist, they must be affected by the environment just like every other animal. Igor Burtsev, a Russian cryptozoologist, has announced that this is indeed the case - this year's hot Siberian summer has forced the mysterious creatures northward. He explained that while most of the yetis in Siberia live in near the caverns known as Azas Cave in the Mountain Shoria region, several have now been spotted further north of the area than in previous years.

Hominologists believe that the heat might have served as a reason for the migration of the Yetis north of the Azas Cave that was considered to be their home. The Director of the International Centre of Hominology in Moscow Igor Burtsev has been studying the Yetis for nearly half a century now. He has been cooperating with thousands of volunteer researchers all over the world: as you know, there is an opinion that there is no such science as hominology in the world today. The Yetis live everywhere but most of them live in Mountain Shoria, Igor Burtsev says.

Neurosurgeon Recounts Near-Death Experience

The evidence continues to mount that something potentially paranormal is going on during near-death experiences. Dr. Eben Alexander, a prominent neurosurgeon, experienced what he believes to be visions of the afterlife while in a week-long coma. What's especially interesting about this case is that unlike most near-death experiences that last for only a few minutes, this one occurred over the course of a full week during which Alexander's brain was monitored the entire time. According to the scans, during the period of the coma his neocortex ceased to function. Much like the near-death experiences in the film Flatliners, his experiences did not register as brain activity. Based on those scans Alexander is convinced that according to conventional models of the mind and brain there is no way that he could have experienced such a detailed, vivid, and lasting experience in his coma state.

Alexander says he first found himself floating above clouds before witnessing, "transparent, shimmering beings arced across the sky, leaving long, streamer like lines behind them."

He claims to have been escorted by an unknown female companion and says he communicated with these beings through a method of correspondence that transcended language. Alexander says the messages he received from those beings loosely translated as:

"You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever."

"You have nothing to fear."

"There is nothing you can do wrong."

From there, Alexander claims to have traveled to "an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting." He believes this void was the home of God.

Clearing Connecticut's "Witches"

When most people think of witchcraft trials in the Americas they think of the well-known trials that happened in Salem, Massachusetts in the 1690's. However, similar trials happened all over New England during the seventeenth century. In Connecticut, 46 people were prosecuted and 11 were executed during a series of trials that began in 1647. For the last seven years a group of their descendants have been working to convince state officials to denounce the trials and clear the names of those accused.

"They were wrongly accused. It’s a justice issue," said Debra Lynne of New Milford, who says her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Sanford, was hanged for witchcraft in Hartford in 1662.

The first person executed in the New World for witchcraft was Alice Young of Windsor, Conn., who was hanged in Hartford in 1647, according to several books on the trials. The last executions were in 1662.

Many historians believe fear was a major driver of Connecticut’s witch trials, according to the state report. Deeply religious colonists who endured years of fighting with Native Americans, floods and sickness may have been looking for someone to blame for their hardships, the report said.

The Tesla Science Center!

This story isn't so much paranormal as just plain cool. After a web campaign that raised more than a million dollars, Nikola Tesla enthusiasts have purchased the Wardenclyffe site and plan to convert the last remaining Tesla laboratory there into a museum showcasing his work. Tesla created most of the technology behind our modern alternating current electrical grid that powers pretty much everything these days, and in addition made a number of other important discoveries regarding the nature of electromagnetic energy. He also is a key figure among fringe science fans, some of whom claim that he was so far ahead of his time that some of his designs are still not understood.

The overgrown 16-acre site, in Shoreham, features his only surviving workshop. The crumbling brick laboratory was designed by Tesla’s friend Stanford White, a celebrated architect who drew up plans in Manhattan for the Washington Arch as well as neoclassical gems like the Century Club.

The Agfa Corporation, which owns the heavily wooded site and once operated a factory there, agreed to sell the estate to the Tesla enthusiasts for an undisclosed sum after they succeeded in raising $1.4 million through a Web campaign. The property had been listed at $1.6 million.

“All the terms and conditions have been accepted,” said John P. O’Hara, a real estate agent on Long Island who represents the property. “It’s all good. The stars have finally aligned.” Agfa’s attorney, Christopher M. Santomassimo, confirmed the deal, saying, “We have reached an agreement.”

Did We Build the Flying Saucers After All?

There are plenty of possible explanations for UFO sightings besides the presence of alien spacecraft. The most plausible, generally speaking, is that the vehicles spotted are classified prototype aircraft developed as "black projects" for the military. It certainly is interesting to note that the development of the stealth fighter corresponded well with sightings of triangular objects rather than the more old-school saucers, and "Area 51" in Nevada that is famous for such sightings did serve as a testing facility for experimental military aircraft at that time. In fact, according to recently declassified documents from the National Archives, such projects date all the way back to the early "flying saucer" period of the 1950's.

The National Archives has recently published never-before-seen schematics and details of a 1950s military venture, called Project 1794, which aimed to build a supersonic flying saucer.

The newly declassified materials show the U.S. Air Force had a contract with a now-defunct Canadian company to build an aircraft unlike anything seen before. Project 1794 got as far as the initial rounds of product development and into prototype design. In a memo dating from 1956 the results from pre-prototype testing are summarized and reveal exactly what the developers had hoped to create.

The saucer was supposed to reach a top speed of “between Mach 3 and Mach 4, a ceiling of over 100,000 ft. and a maximum range with allowances of about 1,000 nautical miles,” according to the document.